the secret stars
by Titus N. Owl
Summary: Bella Swan goes to Hogwarts in search of higher education.  Will she and Snape, the potions master, find love in time for Prom?
1. Chapter 1

Behold! The beautiful Bella Swan. A mere 16 years of age, she is nevertheless above the age of consent, in addition to being remarkably clever and holding four Bachelor of Arts degrees from leading accredited liberal arts universities. She has solved Fermat's Last Theorem (six hours before that other chappy who made the news or something); she has invented an entirely new type of cake; and yet... she has not found love.

She tossed her long, honey-golden hair over her shoulder and sighed, unhappiness filling her wide, sparkling amaranthine eyes. Her husband. Edward "Neddington" Dracul III, was by her side at an instant, his glistening pectorals awash in sympathy. "Beloved! What causes you to sigh out those delicious cupcake-scented breaths?"

"I have not found love," she said with the beautiful simplicity for which millions adored her in her role as Little Orphan Annie in a recent Broadway revival.

"But darling! I thought you loved me!" Neddington's bloodless face sparkled grievously.

Bella wrapped her long, slender arms around him swiftly, silencing him with kisses. The kisses tasted like Jolly Ranchers. "Oh, my sweet husband, I do love you! I have not found the /chemical formula/ for love," she clarified.

At once Neddington's woeful appearance smoothed over, like when you are out boating and you see dark clouds on the horizon and think it is going to rain so you turn the boat around and row back to shore and pack up all your picnic things and head to the cabin but no sooner have you finished all this work than the sun comes back out. "Well, then, you should go back to school."

"I shall," said Bella rapturously. "I shall go to the best school in the world. I shall go to Hogwarts, and speak with Snape, the potions master."  



	2. Chapter 2

In the misty, alligator-ridden swamps of midwestern Ireland, a castle rose above the clinging fog. This castle was Hogwarts, known for centuries as the leading educational facility for wizards, witches, and Parliamentary budget-balancers. Upon its crenellated ramparts, deep in thought, strode Snape, the potions master. The full moon shone on his beak-like nose, sparkled on his highly polished fingernails, became tangled in his lank and unctuous hair, struggled to escape the filthy confines, and eventually gave up hope and hanged itself from his black tangles.

Snape, the potions master, brushed the deceased moonbeams from his shoulders impatiently. His mind was machinating over a single problem: What was the chemical formula for love? As the potions master, he could make any number of potions, including twelve different varieties of so-called love potion; but at best those produced a fleeting infatuation, at worst a dangerous obsession. (Love Potion #11 had been taken off the market due to causing numerous cases of stalking and cannibalism, as well as cancer in lab rats.) True love lay beyond his experience... but could he capture it in a bottle? He must, for there was no other way he was ever going to find a date for Prom and it was next weekend.

Suddenly his musings were interrupted by the appearance of a DC-9 in the sky. He was perplexed and angered: how could any Muggle aircraft make it into Hogwart's magically-enforced no-fly zone? They had a force field and an army of flying pixies armed with tiny magical tridents and also a very large unlicensed ICBM launcher specifically to prevent that sort of thing. His curiosity was soon sated, however, for the emergency exit door above the wing of the jet soon opened, and out hopped the slender yet deliciously curvaceous form of Bella Swan. Hogwarts' defence system was not malfunctioning; it had simply chosen to allow Bella through, out of deference to her loveliness and charm. She jumped from the wing and parachuted lightly down to the parapet in front of Snape, the potions master.

"I have come here," she said, again with the beautiful simplicity for which she was famous on stage and screen, "to find love with you."

Snape, the potions master, felt a stirring in his wand which he had rarely known before. "We will do so." 


	3. Chapter 3

In the deepest, dankest, darkest dungeon that Hogwarts' prison-industrial complex could offer, Bella Swan and Snape, the potions master leaned over a bubbling cauldron. In the shadows behind them, two dryads and a liger were tormenting a Muggle prisoner by threatening a series of limited-edition My Little Pony figurines with physical harm, while Draco Malfoy looked on, his hand busy beneath his Slytherin robes.

"Mister Malfoy," said Snape, the potions master, in his dryest and most professorial tone, "please go to your proper classroom immediately."

"Listen, blad, first of all I told you last week I'm going by Muffy now and also you can't actually make me leave, that's against my human rights," said Draco primly.

Snape, the potions master took his wand out of his pocket and flicked it toward the blond boy negligently. "Quantico," he said, uttering a magic spell. The young, aristocratic wizard disappeared with a startlingly loud bang and a scent like burnt mice.

"Thank you for removing that annoyance, Snape, the potions master," said Bella sweetly, tucking a burnished brass lock of her flaming red hair behind one ear.

Snape, the potions master blushed, his cheeks heating. He had not felt his face redden in this manner since he was a boy of six and was awarded first place in the Greater Welsh Catfish-Noodling Contest and Children's Beauty Pageant, an event which had surprised everyone, including the judges, as they had actually voted for Draco Malfoy's father Anthony and the results had simply been switched off between judges and announcer by a patsy paid off by the father of a little girl who had been turned down for a quadrille by the said Anthony at the previous year's county fair square dance.

Bella, soul of innocence and incorruptibility that she was, remained unaware of the roil of torment troubling the wizened black heart of Snape, the potion master. She did not notice the roseate suffusion in his marble cheeks, nor the slight trembling of his long, frail hands as he reached for his favourite grimoire. Her attention remained solely, virtuously upon the task before them, her slim and lovely fingers marking mystical runes upon a sheet of magical paper (marketed to Muggles as an iPad) as she took notes on the arcane ingredients they may require for their new chemical formula.

Snape, the potions master thought his heart might break from her beauty. Could he keep himself pure and virginal while in such close company with this exquisitely divine young woman? He hoped so, for failure to do so would wrest the wizardric power from his body, leaving him unable to perform so much as a minor act of conjuration like Ix's Illusion of Infusion (a first-level spell which allows the caster to create the appearance of having brewed a cup of tea); such was the fate of all sinners in their magical world.


	4. Chapter 4

Meanwhile, in Hogwart's parking garage, B-level two rows over from the elevator and right next to the pillar identifying that aisle as part of the Unicorn section (for ease in finding your vehicle again on the way out), a black Camaro was rocking slightly.

"Oh my god, my brother Sam, you suck dick so well!"

"Oh my god, my brother Dean, I so know!"

Suddenly an alarm went off and Jeeves, the resident poltergeist, shimmered forth from the elevator. "Would sir and sir please stop commiting incest in the parking garage? Hogwarts has special incest zones outside of which such activity is not permitted," he glistened.

"It so isn't incest if it's RPF," Sam protested. He was a tall, lean young man, whose forehead stretched on for miles, as great and beautiful as the Brazilian pampas. Somewhere near his hairline, a gaucho practiced his bolo technique.

Dean agreed vehemently, springing forth from the Mustang and unfolding his six feet of masculine beauty beneath the harsh glare of the flourescent lighting. His sandy hair rustled as if blown by a slight breeze, and his violet eyes glittered with intelligence and amphetamines. His lips were amazingly girlish, and he pursed them as he paused to do up his zipper.

Jeeves sparkled irritably, one eyebrow twitching slightly. He could not stand for this sort of disobedience, and would shortly be reduced to pitching cow-creamers.

Suddenly the tableau was interrupted by the arrival of Bella Swan, her cerulean hair streaming behind her like the ocean waves as she ran out of the emergency stairwell. Sam and Dean stared at her, struck by the beauty of her feminine visage.

"Oh my god, my brother Sam, that girl is so hot!"

"Oh my god, my brother Dean, I so know!"

They began to make out, and Bella continued in her flight. 


	5. Chapter 5

Outside of the parking garage, Bella Swann's beautiful and perfect husband, Neddington, caught her in his arms. She had been running, you remember, and now she ran into his arms. He caught her manfully with a great, masculine hug, his huge manly arms wrapping her up in ropes of pure testosterone and it was all very sexy but low-key, like, you could get it put on network.

"Oh, Neddington!" Bella buried her face in that spot where the neck kind of meets the shoulder and then when he talks his chin brushes your ear, you know, there. She put her face there and kissed his perfect marble alabaster dragon skin.

"Bella, why were you running?" Neddington asked, his nose sparkling.

"It was - a - a - a werewolf!"

The fleet of enchanted violins which flocked the eaves and chimneys of Hogwarts Castle gathered around the pair and provided a fittingly dramatic sort of dun-dun-DUNNN! noise for the soundtrack.

Neddington's mind raced as fast as only a dragon's can. A werewolf? This must surely be the work of his former rival for his wife's affections - APACHE CHIEF! But this programme was already being looked at critically for its treatment of race; could they dare to bring in another walking stereotype, just for one man's vengeance?

"No, not that enuch-chuck scrote-flasher," Bella cried, for she had read Neddington's mind using their psychic link. She was so beautiful, in that moment, that the entire population of Portugal would have changed their religion to Bellaism and then died out of sheer love for her. All at once. The stink would have ruined the FHSoM season.

Neddington broke from his reverie, his eyes returning slavishly to those of his beloved wife. "Then who, my love?"

"HIS!" Bella struck out her arm to point at a menacing figure just now approaching: a shaggy young man wearing the tattered remains of a red satin jacket, creeping toward them rhythmically - in tune with a distinctive bass line which became clearer as he came nearer.*

"MICHAEL JACKSON!"

*That's poetry. 


	6. Chapter 6

Michael Jackson, the god of the underworld, dark messiah of the unplumbed depths, lord of chaos, render of souls, cleaver of skulls, collector of Hummel figurines - yes, HE HIMSELF approached, and hell followed with him.

Neddington was frozen in shock, glittering red and blue like a police light, incapable of fully comprehending the eldritch form of the creature before him. Bella cowered against her husband's broad, manly chest, whimpering quietly into his left nipple.

Still, the creature approached.

(He was approaching very slowly.)

Snape, the Potions Master, was meanwhile in the basement skinning Neevle Lungbootums to make a stew, when suddenly his Magical Danger-Aware-O-Meter began to plunk. "Plunk, plunk, plunk," it said - three plunks! That was the code for Bella! He'd cast the special Bella-code-creating plunk-plunk-plunk spell just that very day! (Two plunks meant he himself was in danger and a single plunk meant the Magical Danger-Aware-O-Meter was running out of batteries.) He dropped Neevle into the pot with most of his skin still on. Neevle climbed out, hair wet and ears sticking out egregiously. This was just another Tuesday for him.

Snape, the Potions Master, tore through the halls of Hogwarts with the aid of a large pair of scissors, rushing toward the parking garage, where his Force senses told him the danger would be found. His long, lanky hair glimmered with purpose as it streamed behind him; his long, hooked nose shone like marble as it poked out before him; his long, dark eyelashes quivered with emotion, and his long, red lips were pursed lusciously in a mien of Determination and Purpose, the likes of which hadn't been seen in Hogwarts since the fall of 1981, when several girls from the Hufflepuff dormitory learnt that Adam Ant was putting on a concert in Hogsmeade and carried out a full-on raid and rebellion in order to force their teachers to let them out of class early enough to attend.

Snape, the Potions Master, burst through the wall of the parking garage, intent upon saving the beautiful Bella from the horrible creature which menaced her -

- but his eyes went first to her, and then slowly slid up past her glorious azure locks to see the man against whose pectorals she was clustered.

Her husband!

Snape, the Potions Master, forgot about the danger; he forgot his rush; he forgot his sister's birthday three years in a row, and he usually forgot to floss his teeth. All he could remember, in that moment, was that he loved Bella more than anyone had ever loved anything, ever, including more than those Hufflepuffs had loved Adam Ant, and yet now he was faced with her there, clinging to the arms and chest hair of her lawfully-wedded husband.

The world stood still.

Eventually Michael Jackson cleared his throat and squeaked, "Uh, guys, I'm still here."

Snape, the Potions Master, pulled out his wand and cast a spell. "Goawayius Imhavingamomenticus," he said without looking, and Michael Jackson disappeared in a puff of kindergarteners. 


	7. Chapter 7

In the upper ionosphere, so far above Hogwarts Castle that it appeared as a mere black dot with a little flag that popped out to label it HOGWARTS CASTLE (UNLESS YOU ARE A MUGGLE) when you moved your mouse over it, a slenderly devious man in a horned helmet was sitting in a pool float shaped like a spotted horse, rocking gently in the waves created by the radio and satellite traffic on the distant Earth. He sipped from a curly straw poked into a coconut full of myriad otherworldly alcohols and thought Deep Thoughts about Power and Betrayal and Black Lacy Thongs.

Then he decided he was bored.

With a snap of his fingers he appeared in the dungeonlike classroom of Snape, the Potions Master. A flurry of ostrich feathers and snowflakes fluttered to the ground around his feet, and he posed with one hip canted upwards salaciously. He was a fine, fine man. And his magic was /so/ superior to that practiced by these pathetic little mortal wand-wankers. He proved this latter point by simply existing, of course, but he proved it again by making a neon sign wink into existence above his head, declaring: GORGEOUS LOKI HAS ARRIVED [APPLAUSE]. Without even using a wand, mind you. Because he was better than them.

The children in the room dutifully burst into applause. The children in the room consisted of Ron Weasley, the red-headed stepchild of all wizardry, Neville Longbottom, painfully plain, and Harmonica Granger, a ravishingly intelligent young creature who was nevertheless utterly overshadowed by the astonishing loveliness of Miss Bella Swan, who was also in the room, her beauty putting off a slight radioactive glow in which her devoted husband, Nedward, sparkled.

Snape, the Potions Master, stomped his foot. He could not put up with this sort of showmanship in his own classroom! "WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DARE YOU APPARATE INTO MY OWN CLASSROOM? 500 POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR!"

"He's not a Gryffindor!" protested Ron. Snape, the Potions Master, glared at him sharply, sending him scurrying beneath his desk in fear.

Loki turned, slowly, elegantly, audaciously, still doing that hip thing. He gazed down his nose at Snape, the Potions Master.

He could sense a Black Lacy Thong.

Loki gave a simple, elegant, audacious flip of his chin and took the form of a woman so elegant and audacious that Snape, the Potions Master must surely have felt his thong loosen from his hips and slide down his thighs to puddle beneath him on the floor - were he not so desperately in love with Bella Swan that no other being could tempt him.

Neville, however, popped a boner so hard it lifted the table ten degrees out of horizontal. Harmonica's quill rolled across the scroll on which she was taking notes, leaving a nasty blot before it fell into her lap. She gasped in outrage and punched Neville right in the face. He joined Ron beneath the desk.

Loki glanced over and pouted. "Such a pity. That one had a sideways mouth, it was kind of adorable." The elegant, audacious lady that Loki was at that moment turned back to Snape, the Potions Master, striding across the floor towards him and reaching out to run long, elegant, audacious fingers up Snape, the Potion Master's neck. "Oh, Severus-kun, won't you let me see your black lacy thong? It's so... /kawaii./"

The heart of Snape, the Potions Master beat thumpily within his chest. He glanced over toward Bella and felt his resolve firm just as his penis did. He looked back up at Loki, jaw set. "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Loki sighed. "Well, fuck you too," he said, returning to his masculine form and disappearing in a flurry of discontented hail which knocked over several quite expensive beakers and cauldrons and things in his pique.

In the back of the room, Bella sighed. She was torn between devotion to the beautiful Nedward who stood shimmering at her side, and the strong, manly Snape, the Potions Master who had just demonstrated his love for her. How could she ever choose?

Under the front desk, Neville still had a boner. How would he deal with it?

TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO FIND OUT! 


End file.
